Denis Diderot Quotes

The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.

Denis Diderot

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

Denis Diderot

Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm.

Denis Diderot

The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.

Denis Diderot

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

Denis Diderot

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest

Denis Diderot

Distance is a great promoter of admiration!.

Denis Diderot

Distance is a great promoter of admiration!

Denis Diderot

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

Denis Diderot

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Denis Diderot

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

Denis Diderot

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

Denis Diderot

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

Denis Diderot

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Denis Diderot

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.